SIAMISIS: «Given the numbers, it could well be an annual results conference call». In other words, with figures like these, it could easily be a conference call on full-year results.
That was how Helleniq Energy CEO Andreas Siamisis opened yesterday’s briefing to analysts on the impressive financial results. Understandably so, as nine-month profits are running… well above those for all of 2025. Adjusted EBITDA for the nine months came to €1.896bn, compared with €766m a year earlier.
What does that mean for the full year? Judging by Siamisis’ comment that «the fourth quarter is also expected to be good, although perhaps not as good as the third», EBITDA will certainly come in above €2.2bn-€2.4bn, the range analysts had been forecasting until recently…
HELLENIQ ENERGY: HelleniQ Energy Group’s third-quarter adjusted EBITDA blew past consensus, reaching €1.16bn—24% higher than analysts’ consensus estimates. The overwhelming bulk (€1.05bn) came from refining, thanks to exceptionally strong margins. Adjusted net profit was €808m, 28% above analysts’ estimates.
The market is almost certain to make significant upgrades to its earnings forecasts for the current year, given that most analysts had expected adjusted EBITDA of around €1.4bn for the year, while the group reported €1.89bn for the first nine months.
Even the optimistic forecasts of €1.7bn-€1.9bn in adjusted EBITDA for this year have been exceeded. Free cash flow for the nine months came to €1bn, with net debt falling to €1.5bn from €2.1bn at the end of 2025.
The doubling of the interim dividend (€0.40 per share) points to an improved payout ratio against total earnings for 2026.
CREDIABANK: The bank’s results include a figure worth a second look. Net fee and commission income reached €35m in the nine months, up 34%, before any contribution from Pantelakis Securities and Europe Holdings is included.
The increase, therefore, comes from the bank’s existing business and shows that a broader customer base is paying off beyond loan interest income.
For Eleni Vrettou, this is particularly significant for what lies ahead. The brokerage and insurance businesses will be added to a fee base that is already growing rapidly.
At the same time, lending growth is bringing more customers to whom the group can offer investment and insurance services. The next challenge is how much of this potential can be converted into additional revenue.
The first €35m, at any rate, has come in before the contribution of the two acquisitions has begun to show.
CREDIABANK II: 19% of the group’s total bond exposure is measured at fair value, either through equity or through profit and loss. As at 30 September, the group’s total bond exposure stood at €1.98bn.
Some 81% (€1.61bn) was classified at amortised cost, 17.1% (€338.71m) at fair value through other comprehensive income (that is, equity), with the remainder measured at fair value through profit and loss.
Of the €1.98bn, €1.58bn relates to issues by governments or entities with a state guarantee (€0.61bn of which is domestic government debt). €406.6m relates to corporate bonds. Management considers the market risk arising cumulatively from the trading portfolios to be particularly low, as it represents around 0.2% of total capital use.
TSIPRAS: In four days, he picked olives, baked loaves, climbed aboard a fishing boat in the right gear and spoke to young entrepreneurs.
We are talking about Alexis Tsipras, who showed he had taken the ELAS strategy of «going everywhere – speaking door to door» very seriously, drawing on his own political capital.
After a two-day tour packed with meetings in Epirus, where he highlighted the now urgent need for a new productive model, the former prime minister spoke yesterday at an event organised by the Circle of Young Entrepreneurs and Professionals, making the obvious point: healthy businesses need meaningful, healthy competition, because they cannot grow in a market dominated by cartels.
His central proposal? The creation of a National Convergence Fund that would provide €3bn a year to support this new productive model.
As he explained, the €3bn a year could, through leverage of around 1:2, mobilise total investment of €25bn over four years.
He said this investment would in turn channel capital into productive activities where the country has a competitive advantage, such as small and medium-sized businesses.
It goes without saying that a necessary condition for all this is for ELAS to win the election race and form a progressive government. «We are putting forward our positions and sounding them out now; we’ll see what we reel in at the polls», as a party official puts it… summing up the leader’s activity in recent days.
PIERRAKAKIS: «The cost of living remains a major problem, housing is under pressure, and wages need to rise further». With those words, the finance minister took the floor in parliament, prompting many in the chamber to wonder whether he had accidentally read out a speech by an opposition spokesperson.
But Kyriakos Pierrakakis quickly put things back in their… government context: «With measures worth €2.2bn for 2027, we are proceeding with extensive tax cuts and measures to boost incomes», he said, adding that the money had not come from overtaxation: «The government has abolished 92 taxes and tax charges, so the accusation of over-taxation does not stand up to scrutiny», he said.
That prompted the next speakers from other parties to focus on indirect taxes and, in particular, VAT on essential consumer goods.
That, after all, is what all the parties will be highlighting until the polls close…
WINE: Thymiopoulos is preparing something in Rapsani. The winery is moving ahead with permits for a new winery and bottling plant in the area. The amount to be invested in the project has not been disclosed, nor has the size of the facility.
The choice of Rapsani, however, is significant. It is an area with a strong reputation in Greek wine.
NERA KRITIS: The company wants to build a new warehouse in Oinofyta, investing €600,000 to strengthen its distribution network. There is just one small, but far from insignificant, detail: the Asopos.
The property borders the river and lies partly within the Business Park for Environmental Remediation, so additional approvals are needed before the facility can go ahead.
REAL ESTATE: Progreece Infinity Park wants to build four eight-storey blocks in Thessaloniki, near the former commercial railway station.
The plan includes homes, shops and underground parking. The catch is that four listed historic buildings stand next door. That brings the Ministry of Culture into the equation.
The architectural study will be reviewed by the Central Council of Modern Monuments.
GEORGATOS: Vlasios Georgatos of Gregory’s has set up a new property vehicle, PR2 Monoprosopi S.A. The shareholder, with €300,000, is Gregory’s parent company, VG Holding S.A.
The groundwork was laid in August 2022, when Mr Georgatos contributed his shares in five companies spanning food service, bakeries, real estate and tourism to VG Holding, bringing its share capital to €46.38m.
Alongside the food-service companies, Mr Georgatos’ stakes in Kritikos Psitopoleio S.A. also passed to VG Holding. In partnership with Seven Santa Maria Ltd, the company owns and operates hotels and properties in Naousa and Santa Maria on Paros.
HOTELS: The corporate restructuring involving €54.5m at hotel group Akti Imperial and Akti Beach Club was reported to the General Commercial Registry yesterday.
The restructuring involved the establishment of a new holding company (Synthesis Holdings S.A.), through which 80% of its share capital (€54.5m) passes to the three children of the Koutras family (Sotirios, Marios and Alexandros), while Nikolaos Koutras and Angeliki Roumpesi retain 19.14% and 0.79% of the capital, respectively.
On the first board of the parent holding company, Nikolaos Koutras takes on the roles of chairman and chief executive, with Sotirios Koutras and Eirini Koutra as members.
ALTER EGO MEDIA: The share has been moving higher since the publication of a report by TP ICAP Midcap, which initiated coverage of the listed company with a Buy recommendation and a price target of €8.30. Growing investor interest now appears to be showing up on the trading screen, as the market begins to recognise the group’s growth prospects and value.
The column hears that management is not taking its foot off the accelerator. Following recent meetings with Greek and international institutional investors, it is preparing a new round of roadshows in Frankfurt, Paris and London, aiming to broaden its international investor base.
What is interesting is that this activity coincides with stronger momentum in the share, raising expectations of an even greater presence of foreign institutional investors among Alter Ego Media’s shareholders.
TAX OFFICE: The AADE’s latest statistics on 2024 incomes show a striking «migration» among the self-employed.
In the €10,000–€15,000 bracket, the number fell from about 248,000 in 2023 to 133,000. In the €15,000–€20,000 bracket, it rose from 77,000 to 167,000.
A year earlier, something even more dramatic had happened. In 2022, 64.15% of professionals reported business income of less than €10,000.
In 2023, that share fell to 34.45%. And in the narrow €14,000–€15,000 bracket, business income surged from €0.11bn to €1.37bn.
Why did this happen? Because of the minimum deemed income, which is linked to the minimum wage and rises with the number of years a person has been in business.
For anyone with more than 12 years’ experience, it was €14,535 in 2023. Hence the «explosion» in the €14,000–€15,000 bracket.
In 2024, the minimum wage rose from €780 to €830, automatically pushing the deemed income up to €15,466. Professionals moved into a higher bracket and paid more, on the basis of a Government Gazette notice, rather than an actual increase in their income.
TAX OFFICE II: In this way, however, the deemed income designed in a sense as a «floor» appears in practice to have become a… ceiling.
For 2024 incomes, about 381,000 professionals—more than half—were taxed not on the profits shown in their accounts, but on the amount set by the state. In other words, they are taxed not on what they earn, but on what is imposed on them.
How many were unfairly treated as a result?
The law gave them the right to challenge the deemed income by undergoing an audit. Just 2,603 expressed an intention to do so, while at least six in ten backed out along the way, fearing the audit and the procedures involved.
So it is certainly not only those «unfairly treated» by the deemed-income system that we are talking about. We are also talking about tax evasion that has simply found a new, legal point of equilibrium.
The shadow economy, after all, is estimated this year at 21.6% of GDP, or around €50bn. And while tax evaders settle comfortably into the deemed-income system, compliant self-employed people and employees—who, with tax deducted at source, get to choose neither a floor nor a ceiling—pay for them too.